The local council session today was shook up by a surprise announcement during the bi-quarterly budgetary debate by a one Albrecht Levi whom was called to the stage by Front for Advancement. The political faction apparently wanted to shed light on a recent discovery.

Albrecht Levi is one of the last remaining members of the Charon Initiative. Those of you who might remember your history classes maybe remember the project to send ships out into the star outfitted with the necessary material to build gateway stations in reaches that now seem so close to us. like the Ekrush Nebula or the Verdant Expanse, Lots of current federation members were introduced to the federation this way, Stellar Nations we now consider core members in the union. Yes the project has a long and storied history but what does that have to do with the happenings of today?

Well, the project today has been on the brink of disbandment. Many of the exploration ships had already done their part and the one or two whom never reached their destination had been presumed destroyed or lost beyond the federations ability to pick up. As old and part of our history as it was, there was little reason to keep it funded.. until today, In his speech to the parliament Levi confirmed the reactivation of a signal belonging to one of the lost ships, According to him and the historical records this would only have been possible to do if the crew of such a ship would have completed construction of a gateway station. The implications of this signal are significant to say the least as it has been a long, long time since the explorer ships were launched and the current signal has been picked up in as thus far uncharted space

Levi proposed the revival of the Charon Initiative by construction of a special gateway to link to the gateway signal they have received and the building of a expeditionary vessel that would re-establish contact with these lost explorers. The budget meeting was suspended shortly after and the parliament is now in discussion over the proposal and breaking the news to their respective governments, Its going to take time for the council to decide but the general forecast among the experts are increasingly skeptical about the chances of a full revival, We obviously will continue to report on the situation as it develops.

Welcome recruits to the revitalized Charon Project, You have chosen or been chosen to participate in a endeavor that could change the course of history forever, No matter your previous occupation and heritage, be it the private sector or in service of the state, you have been hired because you are the best of the best for the project.

You are the crew of FSS Courier and are about to undertake a journey into uncharted space beyond our furthest reaches, Each discovery you make will have severe repercussions upon the federation and not least of all this project. I strongly urge you to consider this. The Parlement is as of now skeptical but hopeful on this whole thing so be sure to keep reporting your findings to us here at home, It keeps us funded and by extension yourself supplied, Please consult the tablet provided about your crew records so we know if there are any discrepancies in the information provided to us.

Code:

Crew Record:
[b]Name/Designation:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Physical Appearance:[/b] This helps us with uniform messurements
[b]Member Species:[/b] To which member species are you a part of? (Are you a Human or some other species part of the federation, Just describe how they look and a short description of the culture or a long one but for convinience spoiler that
[b]Member Citizenship:[/b] Which member nation are you a citizen of? (Most member states permit migration between their members, it is not unusual to see non-humans living in Sol for instance)
[b]Prior Employment History:[/b] (Background information)
[b]Assigned Crew Station:[/b] (What do you do on the ship, Are you a engine engineer. communications, security force ,diplomat or service e.c.t)

We wish best of luck with your posting, Please report to FSS Courier by 20-06-2325 05:30 Sol Zone.

Welcome to my unknown frontier spaceship crew game, Its mostly focused on exploration of a unknown sector of space, ship management (The ship itself and the social cohesion of the crew itself) and securing funding from your financiers of the federation council. The first week i'll build the established setting with you guys and after that i'll take applications in consideration and then we'd start! Applications will stay open during the game, if people drop out or new people drop in the focus will probably shift from character to character. Think star trek..

I am interested in your contributions to federation members (both species and nations) and historical stuff that happened between them, to get a established background of the setting leading up to the unknown you'll plunge in at game start.

The current federation is a organization of separate stellar nations whom banded together in defiance of several periods of galactic unrest, coming to the conclusion its in everyone's best interest to keep some manner of favorable relations with each other to expand their shared influence and contain threats that surround the current federation borders, There seem to be three tiers of membership within the society with exception of the founding 'core' members whom are generally the most powerful and respected among the highest tier. Nations are broken into Tiers based upon length of membership and general conduct so someone who has just made it into the third tier will be less influential then one of the older members in that tier, likewise a longtime member might get stuck in tier two due to conduct that the general federation does not agree with, like excessive warmongering. Tier one usually consist out of new members, recently uplifted empires or 'liberated' governments and mostly gain the general benefits of membership but retain most of their sovereignty, yet do not have much influence in its decision making . Most of the federation however is in tier two which includes several late-joiners from the time the federation was young and still expanding, Very diverse in viewpoints and local policy most of these will stay in this tier and enjoy the good trade and security that members get.. they have a small say in the federation and most of them are basically the opposition to the parliament... thus far the varies member's goals do not align enough for the opposition to band together yet they do serve a policing function to the parliament and tries to keep it in check, when it is profitable for them to do so. Tier three are the core and founding members of the federation.. with a few ambitious enough empires to make it into the tier, The usual politicking is mostly is a labyrinth maze of compromises, bureaucracy and diplomacy. They work slow but if they decide to fund a initiative or project, they have half a galaxy worth of funding behind them. Tier three nations are usually the most influential and prosperous nations within the federation but if a member fails to meet the standards of the position they most likely will be quietly dumped in tier two.. or if its really a huge scandal there have been instances of getting kicked back to tier one.. There are however no record of member status being disavowed ever in Federation databases.

The Gateway System:

The true power behind the federation's success is the Gateway system, Developed by one of the founding members of the federation these giant constructions allow linked travel between even the farthest points in the federation by generating a wormhole connection between a network of these 'gates'. Most inner-federation connections were gradually expanded into a network of gates while gates to abandoned, unexplored and dangerous sectors were usually isolated from the main network and monitored. Gateway technology also has been refined to be used in smaller scale like vessel to surface transport or vessel to vessel. The secret of constructing such a network has been a federation secret for eons and the system has its drawbacks of having to reconfigure if you want to go to another destination then the ship using it before you but the federation usually works around that problem using redundancy and networking. They all seem to have self destructive measures installed to prevent reverse engineering, if a system containing a gateway is captured by a enemy of the federation they'd commence scorched earth policy by collapsing the connection by destroying the gateways...which is very nightmarish for ships that might have been 'in transit'

A gateway can transport anything entering it but depending on where you are going you might want to consider atmospherics.

Non-Members, Rivalry and the AI-X20 Accord

No one is without neighbors, even the federation, as large as it is at this time and while many of its former neighbors are now members or have been lost to history there are still a few that have and still are affecting the federation:

The Imperuim of Ganhai:"I have found in my observations that both the Federation and the Imperium mirror each-other more closely then they'd like to admit, Both would love nothing more to see the other fail in their schemes yet both cannot subsist without the other. Whether one falls or another rises, all the assorted misery trickles down to the common folk." - Axreci Sarkthi, 'Heretical' imperial scholar during his final speech before being extradited from federation space to imperial authorities

Ever since first contact the Imperuim of Ganhai has been a rival of sorts to the Federation. Expansionist and aggressive they have displaced the people and absorbed the territory of many a stellar nation, Their society is strict and rigid and personal freedoms are most of the time subservient to the needs and will of the empire. The Ganhai are naturally communal and their culture extols the honor of service and loyalty. They have kept up technologically with the federation throughout its growth and many speculate it was this particular rivalry that kept both competing nations on par. The one advantage the Federation has however its gateway system and there is a light paranoia about what might happen if one of the imperial Frumentarii would get their hands on that particular secret... for their own part the imperuim denies access to anyone that is not a citizen.. This apparent rivalry does not mean that the two nations never had any favorable relations with each-other. when needs must they have on occasions engaged in joint operations although with lots of internal friction and teeth clenching.

Pirate Kingdoms of The Yukonda Nebula:"The Yukonda Campaign was the greatest mistake of the Federation, To try and pacify such a region where ships as big as cities could disappear without a trace. Whatever dark deeds that might have happened there in that campaign, it isn't a surprise the admiral gone native nor that that sector of space calls toward the greedy, the ruthless and the desperate....So remember when you see the void tear itself asunder and the outline of ships on your sensors, Expect that barbarity and prepare for repulse it. " - Tershik Varat, Frontier Historian.